


I Love You

by TheonSugden



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: M/M, Mentions of self-harm, Razors, Tumblr Prompts, prompts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-19
Updated: 2015-01-19
Packaged: 2018-03-08 06:12:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3198377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheonSugden/pseuds/TheonSugden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Robert and Aaron say "I love you." Each get a chapter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Aaron

**Author's Note:**

> Based on - "I have a prompt idea for a Robert x Aaron fic. How about their first " I love you's" to each other"

"Keep your hands off me," Aaron growled.

Aaron could break free of Robert’s grip if he tried hard enough. Robert was better in a scrap than most who just looked at his designer jeans or designer hair would guess, but Aaron was stronger, tougher. Aaron could really hurt him. They both knew it. 

That’s why Aaron couldn’t get it through his thick head that Robert wasn’t letting go.

"Just go!"

Robert still wouldn’t let go. He held his arms in place, rock steady. He wasn’t smirking, or sweet talking. He was quiet and calm and scared. He wasn’t scared of Aaron, Aaron began to sense. He was scared for him.

"What is it you think I’m gonna do, posh boy?"

He saw Robert glance at the razor blade laying on the kitchen table, then the mirror Aaron wanted to kiss with his fist.

"I know exactly what you’re going to do," Robert said, calm and clear.

Aaron’s legs buckled from shame and disgust. Robert used him and made fun of him, his family, his scars, yet he was so fucking pathetic that he’d finally made Robert see him as an object of pity.

Aaron couldn’t stomach it. He could take hate or mocking or even outright rejection, but never pity.

He spun around while Robert was distracted, shoving the taller man against the wall, planning to toss him out of the room, or the window, whichever was quicker.

He froze, his callused hands slack on Robert’s leather jacket. Frozen by the vulnerability in Robert’s angelic face, by his quivering chin and big, scared eyes.

"Don’t you get it, you twat?"

He couldn’t let go of Robert, no matter how much he tried. 

He also couldn’t seem to stop talking. Even if he’d stayed away from the razor, something inside was bleeding, raw. 

He had to say it. He knew he likely never would again. The words tore a hole in his throat.

"I-I  _love_  you. When it was just getting our rocks off, I was fine. Fuck, I couldn’t get enough.”

He stepped away now, hoping and fearing that Robert would use this as his excuse to clear out once and for all.

"It ain’t like that anymore. Now it’s just this…I don’t know…it hurts. And pretending it doesn’t does more harm to me than…than anything." 

Somehow, Robert was even more vulnerable than before, practically comatose, hugging himself, his jacket suddenly, seemingly large and baggy on him.

"Did…did you say you love me?" 

Barely above a whisper, but the loudest words Aaron had ever heard.

If Aaron was a man who believed, he would have prayed for Robert to not say the words back. Not then. He’d rather never hear them than hear them then and spend the rest of his life wondering if Robert had just said it out of guilt or shame.

Robert walked toward him, still too stunned to speak. He held his hands to the back of Aaron’s neck, kissed his forehead and cheeks in a way that almost suggested awe, or protection. 

Aaron grunted as Robert picked him up, obeying the rough-voiced command to straddle Robert’s waist.

"Do you think this is gonna be good enough, Robert?" Aaron panted as they broke off their desperate kiss, as he lifted his arms for Robert to remove his white shirt. "Do you think this is gonna keep me whole when you walk out that fucking door?"

Robert simply kissed him again, sad and sure, disorienting him before shoving him onto the bed. His eyes, tears glistening in the fading sunlight, briefly reminded Aaron of an ebbing tide.

"I don’t know," Robert said, his hands shaking as he began to undo his belt buckle. "I don’t know." 


	2. Robert

They were supposed to be show homes, but most of the people in the village seemed to see them as fancy coffins. Something about a show home explosion years back. This just made Lawrence even more determined to get it right, and Robert, for all his loathing of the man, agreed with him. Besides, the show home explosion was caused by the Kings, and like Sadie had once told him, the only things they were good for were glowering and writing checks…and even then they stabbed themselves with the pen half the time. Of course Sadie had caused the explosion, but…semantics, semantics. 

Sadie had never been anything but his bit on the side - technically, he’d been  _her_ bit on the side - just as, technically, Aaron, currently laying beside him, fully clothed, fully asleep, in a bed that wasn’t theirs, would never be theirs, was his bit on the side.

He just wished he could see Aaron that way.

Oh, he had at first - dangerous fun and games with the local roughneck, right up Robert’s alley (and straight to his cock). He wasn’t sure when it had changed, when he’d gotten to the point when he was content laying in a bed with nothing off but his shoes and socks and suit jacket, watching a surly mechanic sleep like an angel.

Aaron looked so peaceful while he slept. Content. Aaron had looked more and more content each week they’d been together (if you could say they were “together”), that is when he didn’t have the lost, faraway look in his eye. The one he didn’t think Robert could see.

Robert knew he had, essentially, dismantled Aaron, and put the pieces back together the way he’d seen fit. He’d never done this with anyone else…he hadn’t even realized that’s what he’d done to Aaron; not at first, anyway. It had excited him, to know he’d had something all his own, for the first time in his life; no Andy like with Katie, no overbearing father like with Chrissie. Aaron was as good at isolating his emotions from friends as Robert was.  But the more Aaron gave in his arms, the more he realized how frayed the seams were. 

He didn’t want to hurt Aaron. One of the reasons he’d sought Aaron out - beyond the blind lust that had hit him harder than all the walls Aaron used to slam him against - was because Aaron had seemed tough and strong. 

And Aaron  _was_ strong, but he was like one of the old pieces of china in Gran’s kitchen. Sturdy, beautiful, but without proper handling, broken in the blink of an eye.

Robert shuddered at the memory of washing the blood off his hands in her cold steel sink. That had just been old plates and dishes, traditions he’d never been a part of, people he’d never known. Aaron was more. He made Robert feel and think about parts of himself left buried. Not with the usual scowl worn by everyone else around him, but because Aaron…Aaron somehow believed that he had good in him.

He’d reduced his sister to tears with those silly stupid rings…the last person in the world he’d wanted to hurt. Aaron had been the only one to expect better of him, to try to get him to stop it. And Robert, to his own surprise, had. Well, almost, anyway.

Aaron almost made him want to be good, as tedious as the idea seemed to him, as much as he had grown to see “goodness” and “being nice” as codewords for hypocrisy and judgment, for being told to say in his place and be what other people wanted him to be.

Aaron didn’t seem to expect any of that from him. He had no preconceived notions of who Robert was supposed to be. He wanted Robert for Robert himself, the man he saw in their moments alone, moments which had somehow gone from white-hot, blind groping to cool contentment.

His alcohol-addled thoughts were shaken by the sudden heaviness on his chest. Robert smiled, in spite of himself, at Aaron’s head resting near his heart, a possessive arm thrown across his waist.

He knew Aaron watched him sleep sometimes, on the few times he’d actually dozed off instead of racing back to Home Farm. Unable to stop himself, he’d teased Aaron about it, getting a furious denial and glare in return. He hadn’t been angry, he’d been…flattered, and more than a little confused. Aaron the romantic, Aaron the soft, vulnerable heart beating in his hand. Even now, the memory gave him a wistful smile.

He felt a little pathetic at returning the favor and watching Aaron’s slumber, wondering what he dreamed, who and what and where he was when he found shelter in his lover’s arms. 

The bedroom was by-the-numbers, a sad slice of blandness he’d never want to even leave his coat in, but as he ran his free hand along the blue-grey duvet, some silly, sentimental part of him wanted to stay there forever. Nobody would really notice he was gone, except Victoria. Maybe Chrissie…maybe. Everyone else would be relieved. Everyone but the man currently with him in a world all their own.

Somewhere between 5 and 6 years old, he’d built a pillow fort to get away from chores and cows and drudgery. Only his mum had gotten him to come out. He still remembered what she’d said:

"I know, Robert. I know." 

No one had ever known since. No one could ever understand him, or even begin to try. And if they did, he had to get away from them, because without games and secrets and walls…he was a 5 year old clutching one of his Gran’s pillows, shouting to be left alone.

Aaron wanted to understand, wanted to care. Robert had no idea why, and couldn’t begin to work up the guts to ask. Something in him knew it wouldn’t last, that Aaron would end up hating him, or even worse, looking at him with that eternal pitying gaze of Diane’s, like he couldn’t stop weeing himself.

Breaking it off with Aaron before the wedding would, should, could make it easier. If Aaron started hating him now, he could just about cope, or use it to make himself stronger, less able to feel. A few months, weeks, even days more…he wasn’t sure he could…

"I love you," he whispered, before he could stop himself, praying Aaron couldn’t hear him, hoping he could. " _I love you. I love you_ ,” he repeated, voice broken from tears heavy in his throat.

He had to say it. If he never said it he’d have…he’d have died inside, somehow, in some way he couldn’t understand. 

He wiped his eyes with the boring duvet, giving himself a few more minutes before he gently shook Aaron awake.

"Sor…sorry mate," Aaron pushed through his cotton mouth, eyes still tired, but also sparkling in their sense of innocence. "Been workin’ extra shifts for Cain…caught up with me I guess."

Robert put on his best grin as he reluctantly disentangled, knowing if he didn’t now he probably wouldn’t until well past sundown.

"I could tell you needed it."

Aaron yawned, lifting his arms and giving Robert a peek at his tummy.

"Bet you liked watching me sleep…don’t even try to deny it, I’m pretty as a picture."

Robert just smiled at him, not able to respond with the usual banter, or to hide the adoration in his eyes.

Aaron turned his head, seemingly unnerved at Robert without his mask.

"Had the nicest dream…" Aaron began, before trailing off, still not looking Robert in the eye.

"Was I in it?" Robert asked, trying to tease, not quite managing to get himself there.

"Yeah…" Aaron replied, almost mouthing the word, staring at his hands as they clutched the duvet. "We were here, and I was in your arms, like a right muppet…I could swear I…"

His hand was trembling, grip tight. Before Robert could stop himself, he sat on the bed, holding Aaron’s hands in his.

Aaron finally looked at him, even if it seemed to take everything Aaron had.

"I just don’t wanna spoil it, Robert…if I say it, it’s not mine anymore…it’s not us…it’s…it’s just something outta my mouth…"

Robert pulled him close, kissing Aaron’s forehead, letting the smaller man breathe into his chest as he’d done not so long ago.

"I know, Aaron," he whispered into Aaron’s soft hair. "I know."


End file.
